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MANWOMAN in Rune Factory 3!

Yup. That Rune Factory 3 we mentioned a couple updates ago? Information's finally coming out for it. It's for the DS, and its official site is finally up.

Gameplay Details. IGN wrote an article about the game. Here are a few snippets of it:

the main character's name is Maisu.

all the classic aspects of RF are still here---raising monsters, farming in caves

but you can also take plants into battle!

a "transformation belt" lets you transform into monsters! which will unlock different abilities and conversations

also, you live in a tree. it's supposed to be much larger and roomier than the usual HM house.

Siliconera also wrote an article: he mainly comments on how the character interaction has seemingly improved. Apparently now, the dialogue and actions of NPCs will actually depend on each other a bit---they'll go about their daily lives as normal, but what they do/say will alter depending on the relationships you form and the decisions you make in the game.

Now, onto the headline.

MANWOMAN ? That's what Siliconera thinks, at least. You can see a picture of our new protagonist up at the right. Do you think it's a boy or a girl? Now see this very amusing quote by the writer at Siliconera:

I don’t have anything against effeminate characters. I’ve played and loved enough Square Enix games, but this…this…manwoman…with his fringe (is that what it’s called?) and bangs and hairband is a bit too much.

lawls. Well, the last time they tried to make a manwoman, they came out with Jamie (Magical Melody). I'm pretty sure this one turned out better.

We somehow have internet access here, yay. However, I'm rushing for time and I do not have my laptop with me so I won't be able to crop out any pictures for you all. I'll do that after I get back.

Screenshots & Art. There are more screenshots and a few pieces of art for the WiiWare game, Ranch Store, including a strawberry cow. Strawberry cows!! Click the link and scroll down a bit to see.

New Characters.Saibara, Nami, and the red Harvest Sprite (known as Nic in STH, among other names) are confirmed characters in Ranch Store. Nami's hair became very messy. I'll upload the character art next week so you can see.

Heyy people. Sorry for the obvious random disappearance of updates. Hopefully they'll happen a little more frequently for at least a little while (minus next week probably because I will not have access to a computer).

First, last week Cher from UNoT informed us that her issue of Marvelous Entertainment DREAM magazine specifies

• a Rune Factory 3 80% complete (no console announced yet)• another DS HM 75% complete• and a Harvest Moon Online! in the works! only in Japan, though, right now. :(

Anyway, we missed a lot of stuff!---most important of which would be E3! So for any of you who didn't see, this was Natsume's E3 lineup:

• HM: Animal Parade (Wii) - September 2009For the last half a year or so, this was known as "Exciting Animal March." As you can see, it's supposed to be a sequel to ToT.• HM: Sunshine Islands (DS) - August 2009This was known as "Sparkling Sun and Friends," and many of you will be happy because for the longest time we thought this was not going to come out in English!• HM: Frantic Farming (DS) - July 2009You've seen a couple updates about this. It's the sequel to Puzzle de HM, a new and improved version.• HM: My Little Shop (WiiWare) - Q3 2009You've seen a couple updates about this too. We don't have a section up for it yet.• HM: Sugartown (PSP) - Q4 2009And you've seen a LOT of updates about this one! It was known as "Sugar Village & Everyone's Wish." (As you can see, they shortened the name, lols.) It's almost like an improved port of the old PS2 HM, Save the Homeland.

They have other non-HM games in their lineup, too. You can see their full brochure here.

As you can see, the official English names have pretty much come out. I would update our own sections accordingly, but I am currently ...

1UP's Impressions. She didn't really like it. Then again, she's new to Rune Factory altogether, so while many of us are looking for improvements from the earlier RF games, she'll still be comparing it to, like, FoMT. She mainly targeted the camera angle and a "loss of sense of ownership" that she feels really takes away from the appeal of the game.

N-Sider's Review. They liked it. From what I've skimmed, it seems like overall the same stuff as with the other RF games---they just basically did an overall good job with it, I guess. You can read the specifics in the link though.

Siliconera's Review. He liked it, thought there were solid improvements etc., but admitted it didn't make the best first impression as a game. He said RFF just isn't a gateway game (which may explain some of the problems 1UP's writer was having), but undoubtedly good once you can spend a couple hours on it.

Natsume's March newsletter was sent out last week, and it features the upcoming Frantic Farming DS game! It's more or less the sequel to the not-so-successful "Puzzle De Harvest Moon", but hopefully this one will be more of a hit. For one, it's set in the world of Island of Happiness, so you'll be sure to see some familiar faces around the game! And while PdHM didn't have much of a storyline, Frantic Farming will have a "story" to go along with each of the 12 playable characters. Make sure to check out the link above for the rest of the new features along with some new screenshots! The game will be available this June.

Gol dodo - A new Sugar Village villager has been added named Gol Dodo (love that last name :P). He shows up one day in your town, having come from a far away land, and has some trouble understanding your language. Check out a video of him in the link!

Harvest Moon: Farm Store, the new Wiiware game that we announced a couple weeks back, finally has had content put up on its main site! Check out the new site here. Just a few highlights from the site:

Videos -Here are some in-game videos. From what I can tell, it looks like this game still has a lot of the classic Harvest Moon elements... just watered down? You are able to go out and purchase seeds that you can grow/harvest, as well as farms animals that you take care of like chickens and cows. But instead of simply shipping the crops or the milk/eggs from your animals, you use them as ingredients in products that you end up selling at your store!

Characters - So far they have up the main characters (boy or girl), the grandmother and grandfather, the Mayor (might look a little different than the mayors we're used to seeing :P), Uncle Takakura, and Vaughn (from IoH!).

Also! The Sugar Village website updated recently, adding a new 'character', seen left. His name is Ponta, and he (she??) is a racoon! From what we can gather he really loves food, and he's a source of some recipes in the game. Now everyone say "awww". :)